Ant Timpson chilled audiences with segments in ABC's of Death and its 2014 sequel before teaming up with Lord Of The Rings icon Elijah Wood and writer Toby Harvard for 2016 cult classic The Greasy Strangler and 2019 thriller Come To Daddy. Now, Timpson is back with a wildly different genre film that is still likely to become as beloved as his previous titles. Starring Wood alongside Evil Dead Rise breakout star Nell Fisher, Bookworm tells the story of Mildred (Fisher) whose ife is turned upside down when a freak toaster accident sees her mother put into an induced coma, forcing her into the care of her estranged father, Strawn Wise (Wood), who she drags on a quest to find the Canterbury Panther and save her family from debt.
The heart-warming oddity received a warm reception during its world premiere at Fantasia International Film Festival and its European premiere at this year's FrightFest, and it is now set for a digital release following its theatrical run. To coincide with Bookworm's home release, FILMHOUNDS speak to director Ant Timpson about filming in the New Zealand wilderness, teaming up with Wood once more, and injecting the film with magic.
Bookworm is coming to digital platforms following its cinema run. What inspired the story of Bookworm?
So many countries and states have their own panther legends, so we were mining that. But the genesis of the idea was from the writer, Toby Harvard, who's brilliant and a good friend of mine. We'd always wanted to make a wilderness film, and the script was written for Elijah Wood, which would have been a disaster if he had said no. We've used Elijah in Come To Daddy and Bookworm as a vessel for male insecurities as dads. We wanted to make it a father-daughter film where we just pulled them both through the wringer. And it was also a hangout, buddy movie inspired by the 70s wilderness films I grew up with. For Toby, it was inspired more by 80s family adventures. And so it was a melding of those ideas. The singular idea was not stepping up in a moment of crisis as a parent and just s***ing the bed in front of your kids.
You mention your children, have either of them watched the film?
Yeah, they did. It's weird to have a film that friends and family can actually watch that isn't outright cold, because most of the films I've been associated with have been kind of outrageous and full of blood and gore. So it's been unusual for my kids to actually recommend a film to their friends and teachers and everyone else. It's nice to get feedback from a whole different demographic. My children came down when we were making it in the Deep South. It was really cool that they saw their dad on set doing what I do because up until then, it was all a mystery. So they were there and then they could see the scene that they were watching being filmed, right there in the cinema.
Much of Bookworm was filmed in the New Zealand wilderness. What was that like when it came to filming?
In my naivety, I thought it was just going to be a really fun summer vacation. The number one thing is the weather you have, the issues you have outdoors you do not have any room to pivot. When 90% of your film takes place in the great outdoors, it just makes it a lot of stress. The logistics of actually getting everyone where we needed to, as well. There was always this huge fear that it was just going to pack in and we were going to lose days and days because we just didn't have the money to say, “Oh, we're just going to have to stop for a week and we'll come back” because every single minute counted. But we got lucky because we t had phenomenal weather. It was up and down, but we sort of managed to ride it all the way.
The film sees you, Toby Harvard, Michael Smiley, and Elijah Wood reunite after Come To Daddy. Was it a conscious decision of yours to consistently work with the same creatives?
Yeah, and it wasn't just them. It was a lot of crew and the whole producing team. It's recreating the wheel each time, right? I feel like there are probably other directors with a lot more muscle, who have been doing it for decades, and who can just work with anyone. But I do feel like those that work with the same crews over and over, do it for a reason, because it is a well-oiled machine. The language between everyone and the comms is just second nature. It's loyalty, but it's also because it's fun as well. You like the people you like to be with, and I want to keep making movies with these same people over and over.
Nell Fisher takes on the role of Mildred in the film and she's fantastic. How did she come aboard the project?
We did an audition process with around 300 kids, through the casting agents who did a great job, it was good to see the wealth of talent out there. But Nell really stood out. I'd seen her when she was eight years old in this indie film called Northspur. Whatever that X factor is that they talk about, she definitely had it. Just through interviews we did in a chemistry reading with Elijah, she was super confident. She's an extraordinary child. She was giving me script notes straight away. She knew the script backwards and forward and she could fill in lines for every other character in the film. Very much like Mildred, to be honest. She's going to be a massive star after Stranger Things. It will be interesting to see the roles she takes from here on, and it was just nice to have her at the start of her career. We probably never get her again.
Strawn being a magician felt very apt at points given how magical the adventure felt. What prompted you to make his character a magician?
Both characters have these masks that they then strip away. They start out apart, and then they come through because we stripped them down. For Elijah's character, we wanted him to have a lot of artifice. We thought there couldn't be anything better than someone who works with illusions because it's all about artifice and smoke and mirrors. Throughout the film, his clothing gets dismantled and the magic starts disappearing, and then he starts trying to be a real father to his estranged daughter. We were working with this idea of taking a fish out of water but to the extreme levels of this Vegas kind of w****r Criss Angel wannabe. Then throwing them in the deep south of New Zealand, where you couldn't feel more out of place.
Has David Blaine seen the film? The story Strawn told about him is fantastic
We wish! Vin Diesel hasn't seen it either, but we would love David Blaine to see it and it was done with a lot of love. David's a phenomenal illusionist and street magician. We just thought what a great foil he would be for Strawn Wise.
Bookworm is a constant balance of humour, heartfelt moments, and intrigue and action. How do you make sure all of these elements have their moment to shine?
It's all in the script, honestly. Toby and I's sensibilities are similar. We can't divorce that darkness and black humour from any of the material that we've been working on. So it was always going to be in there. When it comes to trying to ride that balance, it's the kind of world that we feel more comfortable in. We grew up with those sorts of films that didn't pander to kids and had those moments that were burnt into you that you remember as an adult. The whole film sort of represents this antithesis to molly-coddling kids and wrapping them in bubble wrap a little bit too much. We're against the notion of “Oh, we can't let the kids be scared, or we can't let them be frightened”. It's okay to be frightened, it's part of going through adolescence and becoming and adult. We're giving them minor trauma. I'm all for injecting a little bit of trauma into kids' films.
I was surprised that we see the panther quite early in the film rather than having a big reveal at the end. Why did you choose to do that?
We didn't want the entire film to be wrapped around the sighting of the panther because that felt like the pedestrian way of doing it. We thought it would be nice to sort of flip it and deconstruct the whole style of the adventure film and just give it away, straight away. Make it blase even in the way that it's presented. I think coming across wildlife would be that it disappears out of the periphery and then you clock it. We didn't know whether it was going to be successful or not. I think some people think it's anti-climactic getting it out of the way early, but the heart of the film for us is the characters and the bonding between them. So we thought if we pop that balloon early, we can get back into what the meat of the film is really about.
Bookworm is available on digital platforms from November 11. Distributed by Signature Entertainment
